Lignes de front

For reason I can't remember I recorded this and watched it only today, I had a little problem as somehow the beginning was not recorded. So for me the story started with the young journalist and his large camera wandering about Rwanda's chaos with a young student. Here, in IMDb, I learned it was about the westerners fleeing the areas that was in great upheaval , we do learn that 800,000 people lost their life (But I remember hearing that the number was over 1 million). The story has very graphic moments and it's not for the faint hearted. The pace is very slow at time. The story highlights the despair of some people and the frustration of those who could have help but weren't allowed to. The young journalist is burning to make a difference but the system will not help.... I seem to remember a TV interview with one of the Australian military officer who'd first hand knowledge about the situation and it was said the US passed the problem like a very hot potato around their board rooms for a week whilst the carnage raged and somehow too late to prevent it. Possibly more nations acted in the same manners. But the film is guts wrenching if anything else.

Mash-up of HOTEL RWANDA and UNDER FIRE has video journalist Lespert meeting French Hutu Gueï in an airport lounge and hearing his story about trying to find his missing Tustsi fiancée in the Rwandan war zone.

Lespert convinces boss Stévenin that he can make a documentary accompanying Gueï to Kigali on his search. Their time there (and the body of the film) is a confused mix of massacres, sheltering refugees, the UN post ordered only to use their weapons if they are in personal danger and the business of recording under hazardous conditions. Lespert comments that events are only in black and white to him watching his eye piece.

The issues may get a more thoughtful work through here. Stevenin's lunch time monologue about the impact of watching atrocity first hand is telling. However it's ideas that have been on the screen before, more forcefully.

This one is a great subject treated with seriousness rather than the authority it needs.